Go on, laugh at me. Who cares?
While all the world just scorns and stares,
I turn and shrug my cares away.

My bitter tears sustain, inside,
The crushing pain I try to hide;
I never shrug my cares away.

Ah, but which of me am I?
The laughing face in which I pride,
Or the sobbing heart I try to hide?

The bigger fool am I.
My smile is only fit to hide
The painful heart in which I pride.

27/06/89

Nothing stirs within my soul.
Nothing dares to lift it's head
Since the day I looked within
And found the remnants of the dead.

Sorry for the words I never spoke.
Sorry for the tears I never shed.
Sorry for the dreams I loved to kill
And the fears I always fed.

Sorry for turning love into hate.
Sorry for saying sorry when it's too late.

(05 Feb 2007)

Throw away the bonds! Stand firm!
  Take off the uniform and arms
    And fight, with faith within your heart,
    To gain the peace which once was part
  Of those forgotten days, when no alarms
Could cause your feeble hopes to squirm.

Turn your back on weeping woes,
  And strive to reach the speeding joys
    That rarely wait for slower dreams.
    The choice is yours: reflect the beams
  Of sovereign Love, or face the ploys
That show sweet days as bitter foes.

No second chance, no time to wait;
Just fight by faith, or bow to fate.

© Paddy Ryan, 08/06/90

A lovely, solemn piece of poetry, which includes these lines:

These clumsy feet, still in the mire,
Go crushing blossoms without end;
These hard, well-meaning hands we thrust
Among the heart-strings of a friend.

The ill-timed truth we might have kept--
Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung?
The word we had not sense to say--
Who knows how grandly it had rung!

Another little poem written in my youth, in days of sunshine and rain.

When eagles soar above the rain ...

When eagles soar above the rain,
When lions roar despite their pain,
When women weep with smiling eyes,
It's time to reap in Paradise!

When eagles soar above the rain,
When nothing more is loss or gain,
When heart and mind are kindred beams,
It's time to find your childhood dreams!

When eagles soar above the rain,
When ancient lore revives again,
When in your heart rings Heaven's chime,
It's time to start forgetting time!

12/04/91

It's late, I can't sleep, and for some reason I feel like sharing this little poem with the world (well, with Newsvine anyway :-)

It was written seventeeen years ago, two years after I left the army, still in the bliss of my youthful days. It's not as light-hearted as you might imagine.

The four seasons

(part 1)

A sweet new love begins to bloom,

And soon becomes my shining theme.

My fears predict impending doom;

My freezing heart's just killed a dream.

(part 2)

My fears predict impending doom.

My frozen heart has killed a dream.

A new, sweet love begins to bloom,

And soon becomes my shining theme.

(15/06/89)